Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Peace of Mind

Getting the building tuckpointed and a new roof is all about peace of mind. It's true that a building that has a good tuckpointing job looks better, but the main thing is to keep out the water and maaintain the building. Same with a roof. There's nothing glamorous about a flat roof. It's not beautiful like say slate or tile. In fact, you don't even see it unless you go up on the roof.

But there was no way we were going to put all this money into renovating the 2nd floor and then leave the structure of the building to languish. At left you can see one of the areas that was in dire need of repair. This is what you call cracked and spalling bricks.

Here it is being repaired yesterday. This wall supports our bedroom. Like I said, peace of mind. All the bricks in this problem area were taken out and replaced. We were lucky because when the house next store was levelled, our neighbor let us pillage a bunch of bricks for repairs. We knew we'd be needing them and nabbed a bunch. That saved us some money.

Here's a single spalled brick being replaced. We have over 350 of them to be replaced. The front of the building was done more recently and is fine right now.

It's kind of like Christmas right now for me. Every day I come home and see what has been done on the house. Even if we don't move upstairs (we have not decided yet), it will be a good feeling to just know you are living under a place that is in order and alright with nice quiet tenants. Peace of mind...

1 comment:

Getting a new roof is like getting a huge security-infused blanket wrapped around you...I don't know why, but it felt like a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders when we got our roof... that is great...and you are right--it is a good insurance policy for all the hard work you've been doing on the inside.